You didn't even have to go to nursing school to know that.
After a while in Derry alone, half out of his mind with worry for Hilly and David and contempt for what he now saw as cowardice on his part and fear for Ruth McCausland and the others in Haven, Ev had done some drinking at the little bar halfway down Lower Main. In the course of a conversation with the bartender, he heard the story of a fellow named John Smith, who had taught in the nearby town of Cleaves Mills for a while. Smith had been in a coma for years, had awakened with some sort of psychic gift. He went nuts a few years ago - had tried to assassinate a fellow named Stillson, who was a U.S. representative from New Hampshire.
'Dunno if there was ever any truth to the psychic part of it or not,' the bartender said, drawing Ev a fresh beer. B'lieve most of that stuff is just eyewash, myself. But if you've got some wild-ass tale to tell -' Ev had hinted he had a story to tell that would make The Amityville Horror look tame - 'then Bright at the Bangor Daily News is the guy you ought to tell it to. He wrote up the Smith guy for the paper. He drops in here for a beer every once in a while, and I'll tell you, mister, he believed Smith had the sight.'
Ev had had three beers, rapidly, one after another - just enough, in other words, to believe that simple solutions might be possible. He went to the pay phone, laid out his change on the shelf, and called the Bangor Daily News. David Bright was in, and Ev spoke to him. He didn't tell him the story, not over the phone, but said that he had a tale to tell, and he didn't understand what it all meant, but he thought people ought to know about it, fast.
Bright sounded interested. More, he sounded sympathetic. He asked Ev when he could come up to Bangor (that Bright did not speak of coming to Derry to interview the old man should have tipped Ev to the idea that he might have overestimated both Bright's belief and sympathy), and Ev had asked if that very night would be okay.
'Well, I'll be here another two hours,' Bright said. 'Can you be here before midnight, Mr Hillman?'
'Bet your buns,' the old man snapped, and hung up. When he walked out of Wally's Spa on Lower Main, there was fire in his eyes and a spring in his step. He looked twenty years younger than the man who had shuffled in.
But it was twenty-five miles up to Bangor, and the three beers wore off. By the time Ev got to the News building he was sober again. Worse, his head was fuzzy and confused. He was aware of telling the story badly, of circling around again and again to the magic show, to the way Hilly had looked, to his certainty that David Brown had really disappeared.
At last he stopped ... only it was not so much a stopping as a drying up of an increasingly sluggish flow.
Bright was tapping a pencil against the side of his desk, not looking at Ev.
'You never actually looked under the platform at the time, Mr Hillman?'
'No ... no. But . . .'
Now Bright did look at him, and he had a kind face, but in it Ev saw the expression which had opened his eyes - the man thought he was just as mad as a March hare.
'Mr Hillman, all of this is very interesting
'Never mind,' Ev said, getting up. The chair he had been sitting in bumped back so rapidly it almost fell over. He was dimly aware of word-processor terminals tapping, phones ringing, people walking back and forth in the city room with papers in their hands. Mostly he was aware that it was midnight, he was tired and sick with fear, and this fellow thought he was crazy. 'Never mind, it's late, you'll be wanting to get home to y'family, I guess.'
'Mr Hillman, if you'd just see it from my perspective, you'd understand that - '
'I do see it from your side,' Ev said. 'For the first time, I guess. I have to go, too, Mr Bright. I got a long drive ahead of me and visitin' hours start at nine. Sorry to've wasted y'time.'
He got out of there fast, furiously reminding himself what he